


Fixed Images

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fic, assumes canon knowledge, spoilers for HOUN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4389020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir Henry Baskerville reflects on his time in America, in London, and on the moor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixed Images

**Author's Note:**

> Written for JWP #20: Yankee Doodle Came to London.  
> Warnings: Spoilers for HOUN. Somewhat implausible background for Sir Henry. And absolutely no beta. This was written in a huge rush. You have been warned.

_"I was a boy in my teens at the time of my father's death and had never seen the Hall, for he lived in a little cottage on the South Coast. Thence I went straight to a friend in America. I tell you it is all as new to me as it is to Dr. Watson, and I'm as keen as possible to see the moor."_

\--Sir Henry Baskerville, The Hound of the Baskervilles

 

I was but a teenaged lad when I left England’s shores, orphaned and uncertain. I went to America, where a friend, as close to me as a brother despite the more than ten years between us, took me in and became all the family I needed. We traveled together throughout the United States, going wherever his work took us. He was talented enough that he could have earned an easy living in New York or Philadelphia or any of the great Eastern cities, with a comfortable studio and a posh list of clients. But Tim wasn’t that kind of man. He was a born adventurer who never knew the name of fear, and who wanted to not only see, but share, all the sights the United States had to offer. Landscapes, farmers, tiny mining towns, natives, children, veterans; all fodder for his voracious curiosity and box camera. Much to his disappointment, I had no knack for photography myself, neither with the machine nor with the painstaking process of developing the glass plates. But I was handy with harness and carrying things back and forth, and soon found myself driving the four mules that pulled his darkroom-wagon wherever we went.  
  
Death took my friend far too young, leaving me alone once more. But he’d taught me well, and I found work and ways to keep myself fed. I met many fine folks, high and low, white and black and brown, but none that could hold a candle to my dead friend, not in the States, and not in Canada either.  
  
Not, that is, until life took the strangest turn of all. From a hard-working orphan of no consequence, I found myself elevated by chance to the honours denied my father. I returned to England, and there I encountered not one but two men made of the same stuff as my lost friend. Dr. Watson never hesitated in joining me in coming down to Baskerville Hall, though he’d scarcely known me a day. He was just as adventuresome as Tim had been, and as careful of me as Tim had been, while still respecting my independence as a man and baronet.  
  
His friend, Mr. Holmes, did not come off as well in comparison, at least not at first. There was no mistaking him as an intelligent man, and clear-sighted and unsentimental in a way that also reminded me of my dead friend. But he stayed in London, a city detective solving crimes from his parlor the way my friend Tim could have taken photographs in a studio, while Dr. Watson ran all the dangers with me. Or so I thought. Then I learned of Mr. Holmes’ weeks spent out on the moor, living in a ruined stone hut in order to pursue his goal and protect his client – me – and his friend. That alone earned my respect more than any act of cleverness ever could. It’s the kind of thing Tim would have done.  
  
I’ve thought about my friend a lot, as I have travelled and tried to recover my nerves and my health after the attack by the hound and the events on the moor. I find myself wishing I could talk to him one more time, tell him about everything that’s happened to me, and hear his advice. More than anything else, I wish I could see the pictures he would have taken – of the moor, of Baskerville, of Brenda, and of Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes.  
  
They would have been pictures worth the seeing, and the keeping.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 20, 2015. 
> 
> Additional author's note: "Tim" is very loosely based on the American photographer Timothy O'Sullivan. You can learn more about him [here](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149899/The-American-West-youve-seen-Amazing-19th-century-pictures-landscape-chartered-time.html) and on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_H._O%27Sullivan).


End file.
